


Warmth

by AshsHorrorShow



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Cuddles, Drabble, Fluff, Happy Birthday Jonathan!!!, Holding Hands, Huddling For Warmth, Jonathan Complains Edward is Dramatic But He is Lowkey Dramatic Himself, M/M, Mentions of Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-17
Updated: 2017-11-17
Packaged: 2019-02-03 12:05:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12747981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AshsHorrorShow/pseuds/AshsHorrorShow
Summary: Was Arkham Asylum actually trying to freeze them to death?





	Warmth

Jonathan Crane let out a shiver. Gritting his teeth, he glared at the heater in the cell, which clearly wasn’t doing its job. He’d been in Arkham for a couple of months now, and he was beginning to think that the staff, giving up hope that any of their patients would get better, had decided to try to slowly and subtly kill them off so they could deplete the numbers a bit. 

He didn’t think his theory was too far-fetched. After all, Arkham Asylum didn’t necessarily have the best track record when it came to having a moral and non-corrupt staff. He could rattle off some names in his brain now. Harleen Quinzel, Lyle Bolton, Hugo Strange, Penelope Young… and that was only naming a few!

He also had evidence to back up his claim. Like for example, the food. If it could even be called that. Really, most of the stuff they got served looked like failed science experiments rather than anything edible. He could also tell from experience that it tasted a whole lot worse than it looked too.

Not that Jonathan was expecting five-star meals from a low-budget asylum that constantly had to beg Bruce Wayne for charity. He was used to eating low-quality food when he was out of the asylum as well. But there was a certain point where even he had to put his foot down.

At the very least if they were going to make ‘food’ like this, they could give him a lunch hour that didn’t contain people who would prefer to play with their meals rather than eat them. There was only so long he could watch Harley prod at her food with a fork, as if it were some sort of alien creature, to listen to the grotesque sounds coming from it or watch Joker flip his tray, holding the paste they called mashed potatoes here, upside down and commenting on how none of it was falling off before his already minimal appetite was gone. 

The doctors could comment all they wanted about how underweight he was. He figured he was doing both his body and taste-buds more favors by not consuming much of that slop anyway. 

Then there was the atmosphere of the place. Again, not that Jonathan was some prince who needed the place comfy and colorful like some sort of luxurious hotel. He was used to shitty warehouses and crappy apartments. But Arkham was unique in its horribleness because everything about the place seemed to leak with misery. If he could pick a color to describe the Arkham experience, it would be grey. The walls were grey, the air around them seemed grey, the cheap fluorescent lights they had on the ceiling gave off grey light, the bags under both the doctors and the patients' eyes were grey, etc. It was depressing and almost soul-sucking, the atmosphere of the asylum. The lack of any sort of color also added to the overall mundane nature of the place. Jonathan was never surprised to see the amount of people who had to be put on “death-watch” was growing. The place seemed to exude apathy to anyone's struggles and it gave the illusion that time was going much slower than it actually was.

The air was stale and dusty as if nothing fresh ever came in here. Guards were always watching, waiting for any excuse to use those police batons of theirs on an inmate, if only to alleviate their own boredom. Everything was bolted and there were no windows. It was like being trapped in a giant stone prison. 

But Jonathan could deal with all of that honestly. No matter what shitty change came to Arkham, he had been able to get adjusted to it pretty effortlessly when compared to the other inmates. Maybe it was because he had always been used to living a low-grade lifestyle, so it was easier for him to adapt to such a colorless place than it was for others. Maybe it was also simply the knowledge that he knew if he really put his mind to it, he was sure he could find yet another escape out of this place. But staying at Arkham had its benefits. However bad the meals were, they were free. He had a roof over his head. The place had a library, and since he didn't have to carry the responsibility of being Scarecrow for a while, he could actually do a bit of reading again. He could also practice some of his psychological scare tactics here on rambling patients, which was good practice for him, seeing as a true Master of Fear couldn't just rely on fear toxin to scare people. So he could deal with the place a little while longer, no matter if the doctors were trying to kill him or not. 

But if there was one thing he absolutely couldn’t stand, it was how fucking cold they kept the building. He had considered many atimes walking to one of the psychiatrists and making the comment that not all of the inmates were Victor Fries, and that they didn’t all need to have temperatures this cold to survive. However, the psychiatrists here at Arkham had a tendency to be quite petty when they wanted to be, and seeing as he was particularly high on most of their Hate Lists, he had no doubt if he went and complained, they would only make it colder out of spite. So he just tried his best to deal with it. 

Seeing as he was sitting on the bed of his cell, he quickly gathered the thin, scratchy cotton blanket they provided and wrapped it around himself, trying to preserve heat. However, he knew that was going to be in vain. He knew from previous nighttime experiences that blanket was about as effective as a leaf when it came to protecting him from the chill of the place.

A voice suddenly piped out from across the cell. 

“You cold, Crane?”

Jonathan looked up and saw his new roommate, Edward Nygma looking at him from the corner of the room, where he had been fiddling around with a Rubik's Cube the asylum staff had given him to keep him entertained. Seeing as the toy was sitting perfectly completed on the floor next to him, it seemed as if Edward had already solved it. That hadn’t taken long. Jonathan always found himself somewhat impressed by just how good his younger roommate was at solving puzzles. 

Admittedly, Jonathan hadn’t been thrilled when he had heard the news that, to save space, Arkham was deciding to do a roommate system and pair off the less physically violent inmates together. A small part had hoped since he had driven some inmates into committing suicide before, that the staff wouldn’t want to risk giving him a roommate. But going along with his theory that they wanted to get rid of their repeat offenders, he was given one anyway. 

But, it hadn’t been so bad. Sure, Edward was a chatterbox and the man could be quite melodramatic and petulant at the worst of times, but he was also way more agreeable than Jonathan would’ve expected. The man was polite, fascinatingly smart, and he knew the inner workings of the asylum like the back of his hand. Jonathan supposed he could of gotten screwed over worse in the roommate situation. 

He had thought that his and Edward's relationship would be nothing more than a few idle conversations with one another (with Edward doing most of the talking), and nothing more. After all, most of the rogues were loners by nature. Friendships weren’t usually things that formed and lasted for people like them. After all, for a friendship to work, there had to be a level of trust involved, and trust, was something a lot of rogues didn't have anymore. But for some reason, he noticed that Edward seemed to be wanting to build a friendship at least with him. Jonathan couldn't help but wonder why. 

Maybe he was lonely. He could tell the man was an attention-seeker, and maybe he saw the fact that Jonathan was basically trapped with him as an opportunity to have a captive audience member at all times, so he was testing his luck. There had been a definite shift in their conversations. 

Edward seemed more desperate to try and lengthen how long they talked. Instead of just simply making a few comments about the psychiatrists or guards they had to deal with and being done with it like they had used to, he began asking Jonathan more personal questions. Usually the questions were not too nosy, so Jonathan would usually appease him with a quick answer. However, if Jonathan was deciding not to be as forthcoming with information, Edward would fill the gap by answering the questions for himself instead, possibly trying to get Jonathan to more comfortable with opening up to him. 

He always seemed fascinated by the formula equations Jonathan sketched with chalk under his bed when the guards weren’t paying attention to them and would try and get Jonathan to tell him about his work, which Jonathan would usually allow. He gave Jonathan all sorts of recommendations in Gotham for where he could X chemical once he escaped or give him a good location for a warehouse. Why Edward cared so much about how he fared when he was out of Arkham was beyond Jonathan but he had accepted the information gratefully, taking mental note of it all. Edward would also practically beg him all the time to play rounds of chess with him and was beginning to follow Jonathan around the asylum more, at least, when he could. 

Jonathan wasn’t so sure why Edward was trying to get to know him so much. He couldn’t be that interesting could he? No one else in his life seemed to ever think he was. Part of him wondered if this was all some elaborate ruse and Edward was wanting to use him as a pawn in some sort of game. Though, what that game was, Jonathan couldn’t think of it. He had tried to zoom in on Edward’s nonverbals and listened to his word choice, trying his best to see if he could hear manipulative motivation in them… but he could not.

So for now, Jonathan could only conclude that Edward was being genuine in his queries and friendly advances. 

And sometimes more than friendly advances...

Sneering, Jonathan complained, “Unfortunately yes. I do not see why they keep it so cold in this wretched place.”

Edward seemed confused by his statement and said, “I don’t think it’s very cold in here.”

Jonathan then suddenly began to wonder if it hadn’t been all that cold in Arkham this whole time, and it was only him. His body had never been good at regulating temperature. He found himself cold quite a lot, even when he was out of Arkham. He told Edward so.

“Well yeah, you wear nothing but burlap and straw in the bitter cold of Gotham and you have no meat on your bones. It's really no mystery why you're cold, Jonathan, my friend.” Edward jabbed, voice light, small grin playing at his face. 

Jonathan just threw him a glare, not appreciating any sort of mockery, no matter how light, while he was suffering. Figuring the conversation was over, Jonathan went to stare at the wall of the cell, figuring he could distract himself from how cold he was by plotting some stuff in advance. While he was figuring out he was going to deal with miscellaneous things when he finally got out of Arkham, he flinched when he felt his bed dip with the weight of someone else crawling on it and suddenly felt said person pressing up against him.

Figuring Edward had gone crazy (they were in an asylum after all) and was trying to hurt him, Jonathan was almost was about to punch the other man in the face, when suddenly Edward suddenly threw him a smug look and said in explanation, “You’re cold and I’ve wanted an excuse to do this with you… so it’s a win-win for both of us, right?”

Then with that, he leaned on Jonathan, resting his head comfortably on Jonathan’s shoulder as if he belonged there. Jonathan still found himself stiff, shocked at just how blatant this other man was being. He had inclinations that the man had some feelings for him, but he hadn't expected for him to go so blatant so fast. Did he have no survival instinct? Voice low, he hissed, “Edward, are you insane?”

“According to the courts I am,” Edward said, before grinning at his own bad joke. Jonathan gave him a withering look, not impressed. 

“If the guard out there catches us…”

“He won’t. You and I both know that Officer Morris is so large, you can hear him coming from a mile away. I’ll get off then,” Edward said, sounding all too comfortable right now. The little bastard even was bold enough to grab Jonathan’s hand in his own. 

Jonathan considered snatching his hand back and pushing Edward off of him. He really did. After all, Edward was playing a risky game and dragging Jonathan into something he wasn’t sure he wanted to get into. In fact, he realized that never in his life had he ever walked into anything that even bordered romantic territory. He wasn't sure if he wanted to enter those realms. However, another part of him was secretly enjoying this. That part of him found the illicitness of it all sort of thrilling in a way. Scandalous, if you will. It also found the inclination of perhaps going into unknown territory would be some sort of grand adventure. Even to this day, Jonathan still got a thrill from fear and he had to admit, his heart was pounding now. 

And Edward was really warm… warmer than Jonathan had expected. 

He narrowed his eyes and sighed. He couldn’t believe he was doing this. 

Relaxing a bit more, he rested his chin on the top of Edward’s head, breathing in the scent of his soft hair as he murmured, “Just know I am only using as a heater, Nygma. Nothing more.”

“Whatever you want to tell yourself, Jonathan.” Edward mumbled, clearly not buying it. 

Jonathan wondered what he just walked himself into.

**Author's Note:**

> Happy birthday, Jonathan Crane!!! I love you so much, you sad, old man you. :'D
> 
> Honestly, I was considering making a sad fic for his birthday because these last two weeks for me have been... yeesh... but I decided that would be kind of mean to do to my boy on his birthday and besides, we both needed a cheer up. So here we have some Scriddler. 
> 
> Sorry if this seems OOC... I tried my hardest to keep it somewhat realistic. However, sometimes, I always fear I bound myself so close to canon and stuff that I sacrifice writing anything interesting so I was actually a little more daring here. Hope it came out alright!
> 
> Hope you enjoyed. 
> 
> As always critique is wanted, and have a great day~!


End file.
